“It was an excellent conference with international speakers updating attendees on the latest climate science and coincided with the release of the government’s carbon tax package. The premise of the conference was to describe the 4 degree world our politicians are planning for and in so doing motivate us for mitigation. In this they certainly succeeded as the science is very grim.

Key messages for me were:

Australia is the most vulnerable continent to climate change impacts

The current CO2 concentration is 392 ppm (pre-industrial 280); the current level of warming is one degree above pre-industrial levels

There is an enormous disconnect between the international agreement to limit global warming to 2 degrees (450ppm) and the current policies which see us (with a fossil fuel intensive model) reaching 4 degrees warming by 2070 – and hence 8 degrees by 2300. No human life at this temperature.

We need to peak global emissions by 2020 to have a 2/3 chance of limiting warming to 2 degrees

Global damage is a highly non-linear function of global warming ie. once certain tipping points are crossed there is no way to reverse them and a cascade starts ie. the Greenland ice sheet loss may be triggered at 1.5-2.5 degrees

Preliminary evidence suggests that once global temperature is over 5 degrees it will rapidly accelerate above 10 degrees

This is the CRITICAL DECADE for action to avert dire climate change; a strong mitigation future is technologically and economically feasible but is it politically feasible?

Australia has 7-10% of global biodiversity; we are the most vulnerable continent because we are flat and have nutrient poor soil. This means that species migration is especially great ie. with one degree warming, species need to move 100m altitudinally and 125km south; this is difficult as many of our rivers run east-west

Australia currently has the highest mammal extinction rate in the world. For every 1 degree of warming 100-500 species of bird will become extinct. Ecosystems can only withstand <0.1 degree temperature increase per decade (current rate 0.13deg C; 0.46 at higher latitudes)

In addition to mitigation, the answer here is to protect more land, restore some of what’s lost and understand that landscape level management is more important than individual species ie. protect ecosystems

Session 6- Australian Marine impacts

Oceans maintain climate by absorbing CO2, generating O2 through marine plants and absorbing heat. They also supply our food and generate income through tourism and food supply

Impacts due to climate change include warming, acidification and a reduction in oxygen content

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) generates $6 billion/year and employs 63,000 people- second largest employer in QLD. GBR is the most biodiverse ecosystem in Australia and is especially vulnerable to global warming as we see mass coral bleaching and acidification of the ocean

80% world’s coral reefs are at risk of disappearance at 1.5 degrees warming

Coral reef safety threshold crossed at the latest at 336ppm in 1979

As the ocean has warmed, species have migrated south, today at 1 degree of warming marine organisms have moved 100km south and there is 50% less coral cover now than 50yrs ago

By 2030 we can expect annual mass coral bleaching- the reef does not always recover from this ie. most pacific reefs bleached in 1998 have not recovered.

Session 9- Health impacts by Professor Tony Mc Michael

The issue is not adaptation to 4 degrees of warming as this will not be possible- the need is to strengthen our resolve to mitigation

Australia’s lack of action on climate change is causing thousands of deaths in the third world

Tony asked “What do economists eat?” We don’t just catch fish to sell them as a commodity; we catch them as a food source to maintain our health.

Session 15- Mitigation- Can we?

An excellent solutions-focussed session. I especially enjoyed the presentation from Anna Skarbek from CLIMATEWORKS whose answer was clearly ‘Yes we can!

There was also an address by Greg Combet, Minister for Climate Change and Ross Garnaut discussing the carbon tax package.

Next steps

I personally would prefer to attend a conference where we talk about limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees as 2 degrees sees us accepting the loss of entire countries (ie. Maldives, Pacific islands etc) and I wonder if the scientific community is allowing itself to have its parameters set by the political agenda?

I would also like to see some research focus on mitigation rather than just the adaptation focus of the NCCARF and a place for science and health experts not just economists on key advisory groups like the Climate Change Authority.”

It is unfortunate that a serious family illness prevented Richard Smith from delivering the Redfern Oration for the World Congress of Internal Medicine in Melbourne last year, but problems are opportunities in disguise.

He did not increase his ecological footprint but, thanks to webcasting, he delivered his address from his home in the antipodes and this has also enabled many more people than would otherwise have been the case to read and view his important 10 lessons as follows:

Lesson one: Modern clinical medicine is as out of control as the banks and is unaffordable globally.

Lesson two: Inequalities in our world are gross and need to be tackled.

Lesson three: The Victorians eventually couldn’t live with the difference between rich and poor, and we got income tax with substantial transfers of wealth within countries. We now need such transfers between countries.

Lesson four: You can’t have healthy people without healthy places.

Lesson five: We may not like to think in terms of money, but we have to pay close attention to costs—returning to the utilitarian roots of public health.

Lesson six: How we die may make a huge difference, and there are positive signs of the compression of morbidity. We must promote the idea that death is normal and a friend.

Lesson seven: New challenges need new ways of thinking and behaving.

Lesson eight: ideology can get in the way of progress.

Lesson nine: developing countries don’t have to follow the disastrous path of developed countries but can leapfrog their failures.

Lesson ten: the rich can learn from developing countries.

It is lesson 4 that has particular relevance to CAHA as Richard explains, “…healthy places will begin to disappear as our planet becomes sicker. We need a healthy planet in order to have healthy places, and luckily what is good for individuals—avoiding motorised transport and exercising more and eating more fruit and vegetables and fewer animal products– is also good for the planet.”

But all the lessons are relevant to CAHA. For example one of the key messages from the Marmot Review was that tackling social inequalities in health and tackling climate change must go together.

The message for me is that the major changes required to tackle failing health systems and the urgent need to develop alternate approaches is interconnected with the need to do the same for climate change.